Customer Reviews

Castles and Tower Houses of the Scottish Clans 1450-1650 (Fortress)

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Actually the title of this Osprey publication is a bit misleading. Yes a couple of castles are illustrated, but mostly it is about tower houses, their development and construction. Most of the castles and tower houses illustrated are located in the scottish lowlands and none of them are actually associated with a scottish clan, hence the misleading part of the title. As with all Osprey publications don't expect too much since one cannot really go into depth into a subject in only 64 pages. That being said this is a good place to start but hardly the last word on the subject.

It's a small book, as are most of the books in the Osprey Publishing series, so there isn't a tremendous amount of information contained inside...but it was more than enough for what I needed for my historical romance set in Renaissance Scotland. From this book, I was able to determine exactly what style my character's house would be constructed of, the building materials used, what terms I could use (in conjunction with the assistance of an Etymology reference) for describing the castle/tower house and finally wrap my head around how castles and tower houses evolved through this period. Tower houses are a large part of the text in the book, but that's where the architecture went at that point in time.

This is a reference for general castle and tower house construction and evolution during this short 200-year period and does not go into details about clans and their particular homes and structures...except in the text describing the example illustrations of real clan castles. Since my novel takes place in Scotland and countries frequently develop their architecture in their own special ways as well as incorporating the trends of the time, it was the perfect reference for my research. It also goes into defensive characteristics of the structures as well as life during that time in those castles and tower house. I especially liked the "Tour of a Castle: Urquhart" as it showed how old castle keep structures continued to expand through the centuries by their owners, governed by the needs of the time.